


slivers of moonlight

by crepescular_void



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimitri and Byleth being in love for several thousand words, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, First Fic !!!, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Married Dimileth, Mentioned Annette Fantine Dominic, Mentioned Blue Lions Students (Fire Emblem), Mentioned Jeralt Reus Eisner, Mentioned Mercedes von Martritz, Mentioned Sylvain Jose Gautier, Minor Description of Battle Scars, Nightmare, One Shot, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Safe For Work, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), War Trauma, mentions of trauma, no beta we die like Glenn, post-cannon, so.... tender, soft, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crepescular_void/pseuds/crepescular_void
Summary: Nearly a month after the war’s end, Byleth and Dimitri try to find their own peace, and learn how to sleep.//Byleth comforts Dimitri after a nightmare, prompting a conversation of their feelings following the war//
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 14
Kudos: 78





	slivers of moonlight

In the years since her mercenary work, and the weeks after the war, Byleth tried to learn how to sleep.

Byleth was raised in camps and inns, ready to wake at any moment for any reason. Perhaps there was another town to travel to, work to follow, or an enemy they had neglected. Though her father already fought many battles this way, it took years for Byleth to master the lifestyle. She learned how to fall asleep quickly, anywhere, no matter how many faceless men had fallen to her sword the hour before. And how to wake up just as fast; alert and agile for another day of fighting.

Without warning, the life she had always known slowed. When she was appointed her position at the monastery, the consistency was overwhelming. She woke every morning to the same four walls, saw the same faculty and students, and ate in the same hall. It hadn’t ever occurred to Byleth that her life was so fast-paced. In her first weeks, her challenge wasn’t instruction, but learning how and why one would make their bed. 

More than anything, the newfound security made her nervous. There were six walls and five doors between herself and an outsider, with eight knights posted at the main gate and four at the entrance hall. Byleth would know. On her first night, she circled the monastery restlessly counting each one for herself, trying to find a reason to stay on her guard like she was used to.

Byleth was right to be on her toes. Only a few months in and the monastery learned of enemies sleeping in their dormitories and sharing meals in the dining hall. Not a moment after she let her guard down, her father was killed. 

After her father’s death, she would not allow herself to get comfortable again. Byleth’s old habits returned. Tenfold. That night, she cursed herself for ever having removed the dagger from beneath her pillow. Instead of the sleep that used to come easily, a twig snapping yards from her door would wake her in a cold sweat, crushing the handle of her dagger in her hand, slashing into empty air. The edge kept her too alert to sleep. At the time, she had chided the prince to rest. How hypocritical she must have seemed, with dark bags under her own eyes.

Not soon after, though, Byleth slept. For far, far too long. Her friends had suffered in her absence: those who looked up to her for guidance, for safety, had been let down day after day for five years. She counted each scar she saw on her former students and sought herself to blame. 

In the first two weeks after she woke, she didn’t sleep more than a few hours total. Every time she set her head down, she shook at the thought of abandoning everyone again.

Though all of her students had suffered, her heart ached most at her first sight of the prince, and every sight of him for months after. She had to explain, as he heaved and bled, that he wasn’t alone in the tower- that she wasn’t another ghost who had left him alone. He was wounded, deeply, far beyond his covered eye and broken armor. Byleth remembered his rage, his hysteria before she had disappeared- she had left him alone like that for five years. As much as it stung, she felt deserving of every snarl and curse he had thrown her way those first few months.

Slowly, the prince softened. He wasn’t healed; no one expected him to be. But he had the resolve to thank his comrades for their support- he had the strength to set his goals aside to help others. Byleth noticed after he had smiled for the first time in the months she had been awake, that his smile was terribly contagious.

Perhaps it was unfair for Byleth to say, having been spared five years of it- but the endless war went quickly. And as fate would have it, she was still beside him; the two most restless souls in Fódlan had wed just before the war’s end, doing little to surprise their friends. 

And so, Byleth learned to sleep. It wasn’t much about the lush sheets, the warm, quiet chamber, the clean bedclothes. For the first time in… for the first time, she was safe. No enemies sought her death, no war called for her blade. The first night in the royal chambers, in fact, the recently crowned king was endlessly amused when Byleth knocked out the second her head hit the pillow.

Now weeks after the war had ceased, she woke to noise and stirring. There was no need to dart upright or seek a dagger; she hardly opened her eyes as she waited for enough silence to ease into sleep once more.

It was well into the night, and the quarter moon peeked through the curtains. That sound again. Byleth turned to the noise, rolling to her other side. 

“Dima…?” she whispered. If it was nothing, she’d rather not wake him. At some point during the night, he’d turned so his back faced her. Byleth watched his shoulders rise and fall.

Another noise. It was a murmur, a low hum. He was sleep-talking, perhaps? She rubbed her eyes, letting the scarce light in. 

“You… I know-want…” Dimitri mumbled, his voice strained. She could see his body twitch in his silhouette.

“Dimitri? You alright?” Byleth said, pushing herself up onto her elbows.

Now that she could see his face, her grogginess left. Dimitri’s brows were knit in distress, sweat coming down from his temples. Blonde hair, cut since the war but still long, stuck to his forehead and the back of his neck. With his good eye shut tight, his eyepatch was starting to fall from his face- he had insisted he keep it on at all times, no matter how much Byleth reminded him she’d seen worse scars.

Wrapping her hand around his arm, Byleth gave him a nudge, hoping not to scare him. The king’s mumblings grew louder, more fervent. 

“I know...  _ I know! _ ” he said, giving way to a shout.

Dimitri shook his arm free of Byleth’s hand, like he was deterring an enemy. With reflexes left over from the war, and countless hours training with the king himself, she was able to reel away when he swung his elbow back at her.

“Dimitri!” she called, unheard. 

With rigid movements, he sat up at the edge of the bed and turned his head to the side; the light wasn’t enough to see if his eye was open. For a moment she saw him as he had been in the tower, clutching his lance and bleeding as she approached him. Byleth watched his profile carefully.

“I told you I would, and I did. Leave me!” he said into the air.

Now, it was rare to hear Dimitri speak this way- cold and abrasive, the edge in his voice sharp enough to cut steel. Byleth hadn’t seen him so aggressive since first awakening during the war. It hurt, remembering his trembling voice as he insisted she leave him to die, his instinct to throw his life away in every battle they had, always taking on more enemies than any sane man would provoke. Both of them knew it, and Dimitri reminded her from time to time, that he likely wouldn’t still be here if Byleth hadn’t found him in the monastery that day. A year of fighting later when he asked her to join him in Faerghus she accepted, knowing his wounds would take many more years to heal. 

The king was quiet for a while, letting a minute or two pass with Byleth waiting, motionless, to see if the nightmare had passed. Despite his slow, solemn voice, his breath was heavy, as if in the midst of battle.

“Father… I’ve done it… I did what you asked of me. So  _ why _ …?” Dimitri’s head turned up as if looking at someone standing right in front of him, looking down. The rise and fall of his shoulders was ragged.

Silence. Moments before they exchanged rings and left for Fhirdiad, Dimitri had mentioned nightmares, years of being plagued by vengeful visions of the fallen. He told her the worst of the terrors had ceded as the war ended.

Yet, he had once said the fallen would always be with him. Guilt ate at her stomach. Had this happened other nights? Had she slept through Dimitri’s calls for help, once more? She wanted badly to wake him, and spare him the heartache, but feared it would make things worse.

Carefully, Byleth reached her hand out to place on his shoulder. As her eyes adjusted to the light, the scars that littered his back were revealed. They were not unlike her own. Some short and shallow, while others deeper, the pink tone of scar tissue peeking out from underneath the healing skin. Her hand, small against the expanse of his back, traced circles against his left shoulder. Less than a month had passed since a dagger met him here, and no one but Byleth would notice the slight tilt downward on his left side as it healed.

“It’s okay, Dimitri. It’s over,” she said, her voice rasping slightly with sleep. 

There was no response from the troubled king, but his heaving began to slow. Did her hand help, or her voice? Byleth wasn’t sure, so she continued both.

“They all rest in peace now, Dima. The fighting is over. You’re safe,” he drew a sharp breath suddenly, and exhaled slowly.

“Will they forgive me?” Dimitri asked. Was he still asleep?

“Do I deserve forgiveness?” 

The words were familiar; not those of a king, but a man battered by circumstance. A small, wavering voice. He bowed his head in shame, and Byleth felt her heart shatter. 

Propping herself up on her knees, Byleth reached forward and wrapped her arms around the king’s back, resting her head in the crook of his neck- on his right, as not to disturb his wound. With the push against his back, he slumped slightly forward, his head hanging low. Though lined with sweat, his skin was ice cold. A sliver of moonlight ran over the two of them, the line connecting their bodies.

“You are forgiven, Dimitri,” she said against his skin. His breath hitched, and Byleth felt his body flinch against her.

“Byleth…?” he croaked. Byleth clung closer to his back.

“I’m here.”

For a moment they both held still, afraid to startle one another. Dimitri looked around the room, dazed, with Byleth holding him as though he might suddenly vanish into the night air.

A large, shaky hand rose to Byleth’s cheek, and she turned to look at him. His expression was weary, and he bore a shallow smile, “It’s late, my beloved. I did I wake you?” 

Without an answer, Byleth reached her hand up to Dimitri’s face and tucked a few loose strands of hair behind his ear. His panting had ceded, but his breaths shook as they left him. When Byleth withdrew her hand, they seemed to notice at the same time- his eyepatch had fallen.  
  


Dimitri’s right eye was fused completely shut. A short slash of scar tissue ran in a slanted, lateral line across his eye, the skin still irritated. It was clear he wasn’t taking much care of it, with dead skin peeking out from where his eyelids met and an angry red hue seeping through the entire area. Blonde eyelashes persisted, though flattened from the constant pressure of the eyepatch. Dimtiri’s good eye searched Byleth’s face for disgust or fear, and found nothing.

“I-I’m sorry-” he said, covering the eye with his hand and looking for his eyepatch. He only moved his head, in the interest of keeping Byleth’s arms around him.

“There’s no need,” she said simply, pulling his hand away from his face, “but you really should take better care of it, Dima.”

For all of his strength and authority, the king looked at her with childish eyes, confused. His good eye caught the light, the crystal blue wide and trembling. The silence made both of them nervous.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s nothing I should trouble you with, dear,”

With a sigh, Byleth let go of Dimitri to sit beside him at the edge of the bed. Cold hit them both immediately, ceding to warmth when Byleth took Dimitri’s hands into her own. The difference in size was apparent, but they both had the same calloused palms, the same scarred planes and rough knuckles from years of fighting. They both recalled the turning point of the war, a quiet moment when she had extended a hand to the then-criminal prince in the rain. Finally, they were face to face. 

“You can tell me anything, Dima. Your pain is my own.”

There it was again- he bowed his head, unable to look her in the eye. 

“I have been vague about what I did during those five years of your absence. Unforgivable things. If you had seen- if I were to tell you, even you in your kindness would not be able to look at me the same way,”

“If it hurts to share, I won’t insist. But nothing you say will scare me away.”

“Forgive me, my beloved, but even after all the time we’ve shared, I can’t seem to understand. You’ve shown me nothing but benevolence and patience. At times I was awful to you, inconsiderate, put you and our friends at risk out of my selfishness. How can you be so accepting of me, with all that I’ve done?”

It was the same semitment as his sleep-talking, one he had voiced many times over the past year. During the war he had chided himself constantly, apologizing with every other word for his actions. 

She tried to help, but Byleth was never much for words. Their friends often poked fun at the two of them- Dimitri with his constant formality and royal elegance, and Byleth with her blunt, short sentences. Even after her time at the monastery, surrounded by academia, she had trouble with decorated speech. Dimitri often told her he found it charming, how she hadn’t changed. But despite having heard his regrets before… now, worded this way, specifically for her, Byleth wished more than anything she knew what to say.

“You are not your mistakes, Dima. I see your efforts, and how the guilt gets to you. You don’t need to handle it all alone.”

With his head still low, he let his thumbs trace patterns over her hands. Intimacy was quite a foreign thing for Dimitri, and his little gestures- placing his hand on Byleth’s shoulder, interlocking their fingers, combing her hair- it was another thing Byleth wished she had the words for. 

Dimitri opened his mouth twice to speak, but said nothing. The silence returned like a stubborn weed, and Byleth found herself thinking that war was much simpler than its aftermath. 

“Does it still hurt?” she asked, feeling his eagerness to abandon the previous topic. It worked- Dimitri looked up at her.

“My eye? It… it doesn’t hurt as it once did, but I find myself wanting to scratch at it from time to time. I’m sorry you’ve had to see it- it’s not quite as bad as it looks.”

Byleth shook her head, “I’ve seen worse scars. It itches because it’s irritated- let me tend to it.”

Before he could answer, Byleth had gotten up and left the room, returning quickly with a cloth, a pitcher of water, and a dark bottle. It was something she could  _ do _ to tend to his wound, when words failed her. Dimitri watched her walk back up to him, in a pair of his lounge pants and shirt- she had never been one for gowns. She also wore a stern glance; like one from her professor days, purely out of care, silently scolding him for not taking care of himself. 

Returning to his side, Byleth set the bottle down on the bedside table and lit the oil lamp that sat there. As she dampened a cloth, she looked at his face under the lamplight. The area around his eye was more red than she thought, and his lower eyelid swelled. Short wrinkles at the corners of his eyes caught her attention- he was smiling, and she relished that victory more than any battle she’d won. This was simpler than swords and bows, and yet it mattered so much more. Byleth matched his smile, and rose the wet cloth to his face.

“The water is warm. Tell me if it hurts.”

While she applied pressure against his ruined eye, she continued to watch his face carefully, scanning for a wince at the hot water. Her eyes traveled to the stab wound on his left shoulder- his final scar of the war- it was healing nicely. Dimitri was still. His peace, for now, had returned. 

“It seems I should have listened to Mercedes’s request to heal me before she left for the church,” Dimitri said. He had closed his eye when she applied the cloth, but opened it when Byleth placed a hand on his chin to turn his head towards her. 

“I’m sure she’ll come to visit- if for no one else, Annette is here in Fhirdiad. Here, hold it to your eye,” Byleth said, replacing her hand with his and reaching for the dark bottle. She prepared another cloth with the medicinal solution.

“I know I haven’t been transparent with you, Byleth. Your patience with me, as ever, is appreciated.”

“If you thank me for every move I make, Dima, you’ll lose your voice,”

This got a soft chuckle from Dimitri, “I never expect your jokes. Perhaps that is why I always find them so charming.”

She faced him again to apply the solution, watched his good eye shut and a slight flush across his face in the lamplight. Blonde hair that she had tucked behind his ear fell again, framing his bright eye and sharp features. Resting, with his lips almost pursed, his face might appear stern. But it was difficult for Byleth to see him that way. Besides, the moment he met her eyes, his entire expression softened to hers. And now, in his meekness as she tended to his wound, he looked so… 

“Beautiful,” Byleth found herself saying aloud.

Dimitri opened his good eye, looking at her with confusion. And, as if he couldn’t help it, smiled at her in wonder. 

“Even as you tend to such a grotesque scar, and I’ve disturbed your sleep in the middle of the night, you can speak so highly of me?” he asked.

“Yes. I have scars of my own, and you wouldn’t think less of me for them,” she said, pulling the cloth from his eye and wiping away the excess solution. It would take time for the swelling to go, but at least it was clean. 

Again he was watching her, waiting for something, but Byleth wasn’t sure what. So she tried to do what she normally did when she fought- the first thing she thought of. 

Setting down the cloth, she cupped his cheek in her hand and leaned in. She felt his breath fan her face, and watched his eye widen. For a moment she stilled, waiting for a cue, and found it as the king tilted his head.

It didn’t come as a shock after they’d wed that Dimitri was unfamiliar with romance and what it entailed- in the month since, they did little more than kiss. Byleth didn’t mind. Dimitri until now hadn’t had a life that allowed for such things, or a head that had a place for them. As he told her, the courting rules and formalities he had grown up with in Faerghus hadn’t helped much either. Not that that stopped Sylvain, he had joked.

The kiss was only a few seconds, but to Byleth was a pleasant eternity. It wasn’t just the kiss; she had succeeded, and the content of the nightmare was off of his mind for now. 

Soft pink across Dimitri’s face complemented his smile well. He leaned his head and let it rest in Byleth’s hand, looking at her with the same wonder.

“Beloved, you’ve given me more peace than I thought myself capable of feeling,” he mused, his voice little more than a whisper.

Byleth smiled back at him, but felt he had more to say. She held his head in her hand, stroking his cheek up and down with her thumb.

“They were… quiet, for a little while. When we first came to Fhirdiad, and started spending so much of our days together, planning for a better future and enjoying eachothers company outside the context of battle. But they’re still here, they still want something more from me, something I don’t know how to give them. I don’t know if they’ll ever let me rest…”

_ They.  _ If Byleth hadn’t woken up, she would be one of the faces tormenting him. 

“You’ve done so much in the last few months, Dima. Good work. For Faerghus, for Fódlan and beyond its borders. I can’t imagine they’d be anything but proud of you.”

“Proud? I know now that my intentions are honorable, but I cannot say that of my past actions. Five years, I lived as the same monsters that I’d sworn to renounce, taking lives blindly. My father, Glenn- I will never know if they can accept what I’ve done,” his voice was still hardly more than a whisper.

“I don’t have those answers for you. But I do know that Rodrigue- Glenn’s father and your own father’s closest friend, loved you like a son. He knew of your actions, and never once doubted you,” Byleth said.

This made Dimitri pause, still resting his head in Byleth’s hand. He pulled away, and took Byleth’s hand in his own.

“I’ve kept you up long enough, dear. Thank you, for tending to my eye. Will you join me?”

“Of course,” Byleth said, putting out the lamp and walking around to her side of the bed.

As Byleth lied back down, she felt Dimitri shift toward her immediately, wrapping one arm across her and letting his head rest on her pillow next to her shoulder. He was more than a head taller than her, and his frame easily shadowed hers- but now, he was small, clinging slightly to her. It amazed her, how vulnerable he left himself. After a life of fearing a similar fate to his parents, followed by being on the run from his own country, Byleth would have imagined his guard to be high.

And yet- she was here too, with no dagger beneath her pillow and no doubt in her mind that she was safe.

“Would it help you if I shared some of my past?” Byleth asked. She had returned to a whisper, looking at the way the moon created a stripe of light across the ceiling.

“Anything you’d like to share with me, I’d love to hear. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I know little of your life before we met in Remire.”

“I never thought much of how I was brought up before I came to the monastery. I didn’t know anything but mercenary work with my father. It was only when I talked to the students that I realized my life was strange.”

“Strange?” Dimitri asked, his words landing on her shoulder.

“Strange. I never slept in the same place more than two nights in a row. I had few to talk to. I… hardly blinked an eye, the first time I’d taken a life. I’d seen my father and others do it without much thought, and so it never occurred to me how much weight there was to it. That was until our first missions together- I saw how troubled everyone became, having to hurt others. I felt like all the guilt had caught up to me, all at once.”

Dimitri was drawing circles on Byleth’s upper arm with his fingers, listening carefully. Byleth had the self-awareness to understand it was strange to hear herself talk so much, especially about herself, but he seemed to hang onto her words like they were running from him. He pulled his head up to lay beside hers, and she turned to face him as he spoke.

“You… you were rather quiet, that moon, if memory serves. I didn’t even imagine…”

Back to his regrets. That wasn’t what she intended. Byleth continued, “I’ve had time to think about it, now. I can’t say I’ve experienced what you have, Dima. I know it was far too much for one man to deal with. But I think I understand. If you’re feeling that same sinking feeling… I understand. And if it helps you to talk, or to have me talk- whatever it is, I want to do that for you.”

The corners of his lips tugged up in a small smile as she slung her arm over his side, the two of them in a loose embrace and caught in each other's gaze. 

“I… I don’t know how I will be able to thank you, Byleth. You’ve saved me so many times, I can hardly count them any more,” Dimitri said.

She knew what he meant; he felt he was in her debt, but knew she wouldn’t accept it if he said it aloud. And he was right, she wouldn’t have. But how to make him understand, which words to string together…

“You’ve saved me too, Dima,” she started, noticing his eyebrow quirk up in question, “I don’t mean in battle. You gave me a new purpose. I’ve never felt this much of  _ anything _ before. Before you, I was… your determination, your strength and compassion- it’s- I couldn’t have learned these things without you,” Byleth managed, cursing the eloquence she lacked.

Perhaps Dimitri understood, because his smile widened. Byleth noticed that she had been grabbing Dimitris arm as she spoke and struggled to voice her thoughts, but he must have found it endearing, placing his own hand over hers on his side. He gave a little chuckle at her expression, the frustration showing on her face.

“It’s not often I hear you at a loss for words, beloved. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t tease. I… never thought there was something for you to learn from me,” he said, starting light and airy before he lowered his gaze.

“What is it, Dima?”

He hesitated to speak, and for a moment she thought he might brush the question away again. But she felt his hand over hers, holding her just a little tighter, and maybe remembered Byleth’s reminder to him, her promise to accept him for his past, because after a long pause, he spoke.

“When we met again, I must have scared you. Hurt you. That period of my life feels to me as a long dream, but it’s difficult not to recall how harsh I was to you, to our friends. I suppose that- what I worry is that your first image of me will not be able to return, that it has been tainted. And more so that the way you see me isn’t truly who I am.”

The words hung in the air. Avoiding her eyes, Dimitri took to running his fingers through Byleth’s hair at the base of her neck. 

“When I look at you, it’s a… a combination of all that I know about you. You did scare me, but not in the way that you think- I never feared you would strike me. What I feared was that I wouldn't be able to help you. It hurt only to know that I had abandoned you and failed when you needed me, and that you were hurting.”

“I… I had no idea that you felt that way. I never felt that you had abandoned me, or failed me,” Dimitri said. 

It could be seen as hypocritical, how little Byleth had considered the possibility that she was overepentant in the same way Dimitri was. After all the time alone, he hadn’t come to resent her, even if just for a little while?

“My, it seems we've both been quite mistaken then. I’m sorry, I’ve been selfish- it seems you’ve had this on your chest for some time, and in my ramblings I’ve never once considered you carried your own guilts.”

“It isn’t selfish to be troubled. I deal with these things differently.”

Dimitri met her eyes again, a calmness returning, “Thank you, Byleth. Truly. You were right about speaking aloud- I feel as if part of the weight on my shoulders has eased.”

“I understand that this will take time, and I’m here for you whenever you need me.”

“I don’t suppose I’ll ever comprehend your patience with me, but it is endlessly appreciated.”

The frown that followed on Byleth’s face was reminiscent of the academy days, where it was usually followed by scolding a student for a self-deprecating remark. Dimitri recognized it immediately, shyly opening his mouth to speak- but not before Byleth could amend his statement.

“Dimitri, I love you. Patience has little do with my caring for you, because you don’t frustrate me.”

He chuckled at that, the small sound like music to Byleth’s ears. His smile really was delightful.

“And I love you, Byleth. I would like you to know that- should you ever want to talk as well, I’d be more than happy to hear more of your thoughts. Forgive me for my shallowness, but you always seem so put together and strong- it was silly to think that anyone could be without troubles, and with all you've endured- I haven’t a gift with words as you do, but I hope I can give you some of the peace you’ve given me.”

Byleth should’ve realized it would come off wrong- but she laughed. A real, good hearted laugh that even Dimitri didn’t hear so often. He was taken aback, maybe embarrassed, thinking he had said something wrong; they hadn't had many conversations like this, and it couldn’t be clearer that he was as nervous as she was. What he told her was kind and thoughtful, but she was caught on a phrase he’d used. A rosy pink felt on his cheeks, one Byleth could notice even in the dim light. His meek look didn’t hold long, though. Her laughter settled down and he watched the wrinkles that formed in the corners of her eyes and mouth, the way her lashes fanned and her brows rose, and was soon joining her in a warm smile.

“I’m sorry,” Byleth said, still winded from her laugh, “you haven’t said anything wrong- but I’ve been spending my time sulking over being terrible with words, and not knowing how to use them to help you- and here you are, calling me gifted.”

Dimitri’s smile only grew. He lifted his hand to move a strand of hair from her face, and let his hand lie there against her warm cheek.

“Even when we first met, I was charmed by your speech. Being raised into the royal family, I had to learn to speak… well, as I am speaking. And I often feel I speak many words, yet say so little. But you have a talent for saying all the right things, all at the right time.”

“What a pair of fools we are, hm? Both fond of each other's faults,” Byleth said softly. She let her face melt into Dimitri’s hand, enjoying how his smile got shy again at the gesture. When he spoke again, his voice was milk and honey, a peaceful lull that made Byleth yawn.

“I find that we’ve created a pleasant balance between the two of us, would you say so, my beloved?” he said.

“Balance,” Byleth echoed, pulling Dimitri closer. 

When her head reached his chest, could hear his heartbeat against her, a kind drum dancing in her ears. Though she’d never known the phenomenon herself, the Goddess replacing her own heart, she found comfort in its pitter-pattering. It slowed to a peace as they lay there, the crickets and wind of night ambiance littering the room. But she could hear it still; a persistent little tune of life.  _ Balance. _

“I would say so too,” she said against his chest. 

But Dimitri was already fast asleep, his breath hitting the top of her head. He sighed, his body curling towards her in his sleep naturally. Byleth pulled the heavy covers over the two of them, and soon, she was sleeping too.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic on ao3 and my first fic for fire emblem so I hope you enjoyed!! lmk how I did!!


End file.
